LIVE music, street performers, jugglers and stilt walkers will be among those trying to encourage people to use Felixstowe library on a Sunday.The county council's entertainment roadshow rolls into the resort this Sunday to highlight the new day of opening.

LIVE music, street performers, jugglers and stilt walkers will be among those trying to encourage people to use Felixstowe library on a Sunday.

The county council's entertainment roadshow rolls into the resort this Sunday to highlight the new day of opening.

The project, which it is hoped will encourage more people to use library services, not just books but also the internet, music and videos, is being rolled out across the county over the next three months.

Council executive committee member Kathy Pollard said: "People are already telling us Sunday library opening is helping them have better access to the services libraries can offer, especially free internet access.

"Libraries on a Sunday will have a very different feel as we want to attract new groups of people.

"There will be music playing, refreshments and newspapers available plus children's clubs, teenage sessions and computer learning courses."

The Suffolk library service is extending library hours to open on Sundays – the first in the country to do so – and later in the day in order to encourage more people to use the service, especially people under 40.

Extensive consultation discovered that many people would welcome Sunday opening and could help solve to the nationally-seen decline in library usage.

The roadshow at Felixstowe on Sunday gets underway at 10 am and will include activities with the Learning and Skills Council, live music with session guitarist Mark Stuart, street entertainers, a children's club, computer sessions, and a teenage drop-in and homework club.

There will also be demonstrations from artists Pat Todd and Verena Daniels, who run the Reunion Gallery in Felixstowe. They will be showing works in porcelain, wire and beads, and abstract seaside ceramic pictures.

Poet Ed Henderson will be collecting Sunday memories and welding them into a series of poems.

A countywide competition is also being run to celebrate Sunday openings with people of all ages invited to create a postcard, compose a radio jingle or design a web page. There are competition prizes of £50 for three categories.

Libraries in Chantry, Kesgrave and Saxmundham plus Debenham Resource Centre are also open this Sunday. Ipswich County Library will host the roadshow on the Sunday August 24, which will include henna hand painting, salsa dancing, classical guitar and T shirt printing.

WEBLINK: www.sundaylibraries.co.uk